The EPSRC Sustainable Urban Environment Programme
Philippa Hemmings27 October 2010
Towards a Sustainable Urban Environment
£45M strategic research programme in designing a sustainable urban environment for the 21st century
Aims of SUEKey drivers:
To improve the quality of life of UK citizens
To support the sustainable development of the UK economy and society
To meet the needs of users of EPSRC-funded research
Specific objectives:
To develop and promote a strategic research agenda to address sustainability in the urban environment for the 21st century
To strengthen the capability of the UK research base in sustainability issues related to the urban environment
To engage with end users in industry, commerce, and the public sector
Some Statistics
Programme was initiated in 2001
To date 24 multidisciplinary research consortia
have been established
Over £45M research funded
Over 160 different principal and co-investigators
Over 400 research and technical staff posts
Over 400 project partners
Collaborations with 25 different local authorities
Collaborations with industry, charities, professional organisations, public organisations
SUE activities SUE1 – developed through consortium building workshops.Awards were made in 4 clusters:
Built Environment
Water and Waste
Transport
Metrics, Knowledge Management and Decision Tools
SUE2 – took an holistic and integrated view of sustainability
KT-SUE (ISSUES) – knowledge transfer
SUE DIALOGUES – community led dialogue
SUE 3 – Integration Across Scales following a Grand Challenges Workshop
SUE Dialogues“ Drawing together the diverse academic research community established by SUE funding”
Workshop March 2010 for SUE researchers, stakeholders & researchers engaged in complementary research
Sharing expertise
Creating a vision for future research into sustainability
Exploring knowledge exchange
“Who is SUE (And What has she done?)”
www.suedialogues.wordpress.com/events (Chris Rogers, Birmingham & Rachel Cooper, Lancaster)
SUE KT -ISSUES
www.urbansustainabilityexchange.org.uk/ISSUESEvents
Knowledge transfer arm of the SUE Programme
Set up to ensure that the findings from the SUE Programme are understood and used by:
policymakers
practitioners
end users
Led by Paul Jowitt, Heriot Watt & Peter Guthrie, Cambridge
SUE is broader than a single Programme or Research Council
Process, Environment and Sustainability
Cross-Disciplinary Interfaces
Towards Next Generation Healthcare
Digital Economy
Successes of the SUE programme to date
Internationally leading research
Inter-disciplinary working
Capacity building
Breadth of the programme
Wide range of partners
Wide variety of outputs
Raised levels of interest & awareness
Currently, in the early stages of scoping a review
Longer Term Successes
Enthusing researchers to pursue longer-term agendas, challenging today’s thinking
More effective design of future research programmes that meet the needs of their communities
A broader view of engineering and its impacts on society and the environment
Rapid and effective dissemination and take up of research findings
A new perspective on the future Urban Environment
What next?
Ensuring future capacity
Continuing to ensure impact from past funding
New opportunities?
EPSRC is developing its new Delivery Plan for the next 4 years, learning from the past and aiming to help transform the future